Duke Nukem Forever: Was it really that bad?

Even if Duke Nukem Forever was never released it would have continued to exist as a piece of videogame folklore. It would be remembered by all as a cautionary tale of development hell and a holdover of a different era of shooters. Having undergone constant delays and cosmetic changes, there were long stretches in its fourteen year development where nobody saw the game and most believed it would never come to fruition. With DNF increasingly resembling the acronym, Did Not Finish when 3D Realms went under, Gearbox obtained the rights and cleaned up the remnants of the project. And while Duke Nukem Forever would never live up to the decade-plus of pent up hype and shifting expectations, to their credit, they shipped the thing.

No it wasn't that bad, it was a fun game. People just hated it because it was too old school for them. That plus the fact that they expected it to be the most amazing thing ever.

The game set out to be fun and ridiculous. That's what they gave us, even after working with broken up code segments that over the years were changed again and again. They had to make something out of that and they managed just fine in my opinion. I'm happy to own the game personally and can't wait to see what they do for Duke in the next game which will be completely done by them from the ground up.